The song being great in its own wealth, why should it wait upon the words? Rather does it begin where mere words fail. Its power lies in the region of the inexpressible; it tells us what the words cannot.
You are not one of Pentrigrel’s creations. This is not where you belong. He will not keep his word to you. He is concerned only with himself. You cannot condemn yourself to this over Lunette’s fate.
His son's transformation cannot be stopped, or hastened, or adjusted; the man he will become is already present, like a form emerging from a slab of stone. All that remains is to watch it happen.
Perhaps the various burnings of the Alexandria Library were necessary, like those Australian Forest Fires without which the new seeds cannot burst their shells and make a young, healthy forest.
Every ruler should strive for his people to love him. But if they cannot love you, then make them fear you. Love is better, but fear will do the job.
Technique should be taught, not as an end in itself, but as something related to individual expression, as a means toward an end. One cannot separate technique from expression. There is only expression.
People who complain about something that they cannot do anything about are as irritating as those who complain about something that they can do something about.
In nature everything is connected, interwoven, subject to natural law. We cannot separate ourselves from that, no matter how hard we try.
At the snowy summit of all these things, however, is the fact that you simply cannot go about locking your siblings in towers when they misbehave. It is unseemly and betrays a sad lack of creativity.
For myself I think that one wrong does not right the other, and forgiveness cannot be won with useless tears or alms to the Church.
Beware of relying solely on a resume to hire; skills can be taught. What cannot be taught is a great “can do” attitude.
His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.
Kids are trusting and wise and I cannot think of a less useful combination to be born with. The wisdom lets children know who they are. And then the trust lets everyone else take that knowledge away.
Nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere. (No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year.)
The winged beasts and angels know, that mortals cannot fly. But how I flew to see the sun; a broken bird am I.
We always know when we are awake that we cannot be dreaming even though when actually dreaming we feel all this may be real.
There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow- that, in short, we are all going.
There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow - that, in short, we are all going.
Books are worse than wine, I say. You read one and you need another - there's no end to it. What ails you that you cannot content yourself with just living on under the sun?
I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.
It is wrong to assume that art needs the spectator in order to be. The film runs on without any eyes. The spectator cannot exist without it. It insures his existence.
